Su Shi

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Su Shi

1037-1101

Poet and essayist

Political Career. Su Shi was born into the family of a humble, self-taught scholar in Sichuan Province. He was influenced by his father, Su Xun (1009-1106), who had managed to secure an official position through diligent study and hard work. When he was twenty-one, Su Shi and his younger brother, Su Che (1039-1112), passed the civil examinations to earn the jinshi (presented scholar) title. Su Shi’s early political career was promising, but his life soon became filled with difficulties, mainly caused by policy changes. Serving first in a provincial post and then in the capital, Su joined his examiner Ouyang Xiu in opposing the reformist prime minister Wang Anshi. Having chosen the wrong side, Su ended up in jail for a short time. After his release, although he had been a sincere Confucian, he sought to ease the anxieties of his political career by turning to Daoism and Buddhism. He called himself Dongpo (Lay Buddhist of the Eastern Hill). After Wang Anshi’s fall from power, Su Shi was recalled to the capital, but he soon offended the new prime minister by opposing his decision to denounce all Wang’s reform measures. At his request Su was sent to govern Hangzhou. Thereafter, except for a few brief periods in the capital, he spent most of the remaining years of his life in one provincial post after another.

Literary Life. Su Shi and his father and brother, known as the “Three Sus,” were are all important prose writers and poets. Though he believed that literature could be a political and moral tool, Su Shi thought literature had more important functions and stressed its artistic, philosophical, and emotional aspects. His prose writings include many excellent essays on historical figures, politics, and nature, including “On Fan Zeng,” “On Jia Yi,” “On Chao Cuo,” “The Investigation of the Mountain Shizhong,” and “Red Cliff Rhapsodies.” He also wrote nearly twenty-eight hundred poems and about three hundred and fifty lyrics, among them “Inscription on the Wall of the Western Forest,” “A Riverside Town,” “Water Mode Song,” and “Reflections on the Past at the Red Cliff.” His style is spontaneous and unrestrained, displaying powerful sentiments and covering a broad range of themes. Su Shi is widely considered the greatest poet of the Song dynasty (960-1279) and one of the “Eight Masters of Tang and Song Prose.” He also achieved renown as a painter and calligrapher.